Embracing the Future at Graceland: Insights from the Basware Premier Event

During the week of September 9th, I attended the Basware Premier Event in Memphis — a fantastic gathering that delved into several key topics, including touchless invoice processing to accelerate workflows, the importance of ROI assessments and how AI can enhance AP outcomes. A customer panel shared their experiences with processing thousands of invoices and how Basware supported them in improving accuracy. They emphasized that metrics like on-time payments, time savings and process efficiency are crucial in defining value.

Basware expressed its dedication to making invoice processing more efficient, with goals such as achieving 100% compliance and processing invoices within 24 hours. They highlighted that their continuously improving AI and machine learning systems set them apart from competitors.

Innovation and collaboration with customers were major themes, with future developments like ‘co-pilots’ being explored to enhance compliance, supplier management, data insights and more.

Jason Kurtz, the CEO of Basware, opened the event with a memorable Elvis quote: “Always on my mind.” This set a welcoming tone that highlighted Basware’s strong commitment to its customers. Basware views its clients as the heroes of their organizations and strives to provide them with the data and tools they need to succeed.

Key Discussions and Insights during the event

Nick Miller, Director of Customer Value, outlined objectives focused on customer success. He emphasized helping customers realize tangible benefits from Basware’s solutions and providing the necessary tools and resources to support global success. Nick introduced customer value playbooks to expedite value realization and highlighted the importance of increasing value fluency to help customers get the most from the solutions. He also advocated for keeping customer value central in product development and engineering.

He introduced the Value 360 framework, a comprehensive approach to help customers realize value at every stage. It involves identifying and quantifying value opportunities by aligning on objectives from the start; developing and implementing a value plan with proper governance, prioritization, and team enablement; measuring and reporting on value through dashboards and regular updates; and establishing an ongoing realization model by scheduling touchpoints and maintaining stakeholder alignment. This framework covers the entire process — from implementation to monitoring — and includes deliverables like value strategy plans, product enablement and value tracking.

Perttu Nihti, Chief Product Officer, spoke about setting the stage for a touchless future by addressing major industry trends, such as AI innovation and automation, increasing fraud, regulatory compliance, labor shortages, the importance of data and sustainability and ESG considerations. He emphasized the need for solutions that are adaptable, secure and forward thinking.

He highlighted Basware’s comprehensive platform, which includes:

• Global compliance for end-to-end invoicing, ensuring adherence to legal, tax and security requirements worldwide.
• The Basware Network for speedy and high-quality invoice exchanges.
• AP automation features like N-Way Matching and SmartCoding for accurate, touchless processing.
• AP Assurance Services that protect financial integrity, including AP Protect for fraud prevention, Statement Matching for ledger accuracy, and AP Audit & Recovery for invoices already processed.
• Embedded AI enhancements such as SmartPDF AI, an AI-powered tool that captures invoices with over 90% touchless processing, improving data quality for downstream use.
• Data and Insights that provide transparency across all spend and aid in process optimization.
• Its Procurement Solution, which integrates with Amazon Business, to enable seamless product searches, price comparisons, compliance assurance and reduction of off-contract spending.

Perttu also discussed several enhancements and new offerings:

• Touchless Invoice Process Discovery, which provides tools to define and achieve optimal touchless rates, boosting AP performance through customizable metrics.
• The upcoming Data Access Offering in 2024, providing quick AP data access via APIs for efficient retrieval and management of invoice information.
• Global Compliance Enhancements, strengthening business-to-business and business-to-government connectivity globally.

He outlined future goals aiming to achieve:

• 100% data accuracy and near 100% automation
• AI-driven exception handling
• Fraud and overpayment prevention
• Compliance assurance
• Audit readiness and transparency
• Actionable AI-driven insights
• Ease of use and self service
• Security and seamless integrations
• Scalability

Innovations, such as generative AI co-pilots, expanded fraud detection capabilities, smarter AI solutions like SmartCoding, intelligent firewalls, ESG visibility, workflow AI, smart matching AI, simulation analytics and CFO insights, are being explored to enhance the platform’s capabilities.

Final Comment

Overall, the Basware Premier Event provided valuable insights into the company’s commitment to innovation and customer success. By focusing on touchless invoice processing, AI-driven solutions and collaborative development, Basware continues to position itself as a leader in automating AP financial processes. The event highlighted the importance of partnership between Basware and its customers in driving efficiency, compliance and value across organizations.

Thanks for having me!